Global warming of 2°C would lead to about 230 billion tons of carbon being released from the world’s soil, new research suggests.
Global soils contain two to three times more carbon than the atmosphere, and higher temperatures speed up decomposition—reducing the amount of time carbon spends in the soil (known as “soil carbon turnover”).
The new international research study, led by the University of Exeter, reveals the sensitivity of soil carbon turnover to global warming and subsequently halves uncertainty about this in future climate change projections.